Capture-bonding
Capture-bonding is a hypothetical construct based in evolutionary psychology to explain Stockholm syndrome. It is a hypothetical construct that proports to describe an evolutionary-based psychological mechanism exemplified by the behavior of Elizabeth Smart in Salt Lake City in 2003 or that of Patty Hearst when she was abducted in 1974. In both cases the victims bonded to their captors and resisted leaving them. The evolutionary origin of this psychological phenomenon is hypothesized to come from evolutionary selection. The hypothesis is that ancient humans, usually female, were commonly and often violently captured from one tribe by another. Those who had the psychological traits (posited to be a gene-based mechanisms) that led them to socially reorient after a few days (i.e., bond) to their captors survived to pass on the trait. Those who continued to resist, because they didn't have this trait, often may not have reproduced. Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War, Mankind Quarterly, Volume XLVI Number 4, Summer 2006. Deadly violence is also regularly activated in competition over women. Although human males are less polygynous than those of some other species, they still compete over the quality and number of women that they can have. Abduction of women, rape, accusations of adultery, and broken promises of marriage are widespread direct causes of reproductive conflict, while resource competition in order to be able to afford more women and children is an indirect cause as well as a direct one. pg. 16 Gat, Azar, (2000) The human motivational complex: Evolutionary theory and the causes of hunter-gatherer fighting. Anthropological Quarterly, 73.2 74-88. See: http://cniss.wustl.edu/workshoppapers/gatpres1a.pdf In the view of evolutionary psychology "the mind is a set of information-processing machines that were designed by natural selection to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors." Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer - Leda Cosmides & John Tooby retrieved 12/4/07 The concepts of Capture-bonding or Stockholm syndrome can be used to understand historical events from the Rape of the Sabine Women to the accounts of Europeans who were captured and assimilated into Native American tribes. Alternative hypotheses While an evolutionary psychological explanation for the Stockholm syndrome is one hypothesis regarding the basis for these behaviors, there are other equally plausible explanations that have more empirical research to support them. * Object relations theory and Psychoanalytic theory would explain the behavior as a result of the psychological mechanism of identification with the aggressor. * Sociological theories discuss power relationships and power imbalances as the basis for these behaviors. See also * Bride kidnapping * Basic training * Battered person syndrome * Evolutionary psychology * Hazing * Patty Hearst * Stockholm syndrome * Behavioural genetics * Dual inheritance theory * Evolutionary psychology controversy * Evolutionary developmental psychology * Evolutionary educational psychology * Evolutionary psychology paradigm of John Tooby and Leda Cosmides * Philosophy of psychology * Human behavioral ecology * Psychoanalytic Theory "A Fundamental Revision" * List of evolutionary psychologists * List of publications on evolution and human behavior * Gene-centered view of evolution * Darwinian psychiatry References Category:Evolutionary psychology